None of us is perfect, and that is what makes us human. As such, we tend to have regrets, from the slight to the many. Only hindsight can tell us how these smaller regrets might end up having a significant impact on our lives, like in that film with Ashton Kutcher. In 2005, after many delays, a film adaptation of the short story that popularised the Butterfly Effect thought experiment finally got told in A Sound of Thunder.

In the year 2055, time travel has become a reality, a hobby for those with more money than they know what to do with it, and they come face to face with the prehistoric lizards of yesteryear. Great effort is spent to ensure that the sanity of the timeline remains, with Dinosaurs mere minutes from their natural death picked for the hunt, and weapons that only fire after strict conditions are met. Rules and oversights are abundant to make sure each trip is a success. However, when one trip goes wrong, it slowly dawns on the staff of TimeSafari that their actions will already have consequences.

You might already be familiar with A Sound of Thunder from the original short story, or that delightful Treehouse of Horror segment. Both these tellings are known for their brevity, with the original short story being a few pages long. The film has just under two hours to fill, and does its best to stretch the source material to fill that extended run time. The film substitutes the political consequences for a more environmental disaster, which I guess is probably way easier to film with computer-aided graphics than just putting a bunch of black and red banners around. The use of C.G.I is apparent throughout the film, from the jungles of prehistory to the rapidly encroaching year of 2055, and the film invents a supercomputer to help guide their jumps. These dramatic changes do help keep the original story fresh enough for returning fans to experience the same beats in a new way.

While the film has had a turbulent gestation, the final feature, for lack of a better word, features Ben Kinsley as Charles Hatton, the man rich enough to front TimeSafari. He has a team behind him that is the main focus of the film. Such as Edward Burns, as Travis plays the head researcher, a role that would have gone to Pierce Brosnan. Even though all the clients opt for hunting trips instead of photo trips, he does have somewhat of a conscience, not unlike Sonia, played by Catherine McCormack, who designed Supercomputer T.A.M.I. She is applauded for the uses of her work.

While A Sound Of Thunder might feel a remnant of the past of block-busting filmmaking, it is a fascinating fly in amber. Not that long after the Time Machine remake, or The Day After Tomorrow. Taking a premise that’s only a few pages long and running with it, with computers and action both behind and in front of the camera. It might entertain for an hour or two. As we are rapidly approaching the halfway point between the film’s release date and the far-off year that which it was set. A Sound Of Thunder is more than the sum of a butterfly flapping its wings.

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